the one problem i have with people my age and younger is that a lot of us do not have hands on hobbies. like i have spoken to so many people my age who go to work, go to school and then fuck around on their phone/computer for hours and then ???????? like no wonder ur depressed and have low confidence in urself. u need to get ur hands on something, feed those dopamine receptors! learn how to play guitar, garden, scrapbook, fucking make model trains. i don’t give a shit, MAKE SOMETHING!!
it feels better than drugs when i finish making a thing—and then show it off or gift it.
and then so people my age say to me ‘well—i can’t draw/paint/knit/etc. like you can. my stuff would be terrible.’ yeah, well duh—a part of developing skill is sucking at something and then practicing it over and over and over again until you suck less. u’ll have a hard time feeling lonely or bored when you can’t stop thinking abt a technique you want to try or something you want to make for someone else. making things has SAVED MY LIFE. it gave me a reason to keep living day after day when i wanted to die.
making things have improved my generational relationships (when i worked for the newspaper i would talk to customers abt jamming recipes or cross-stitch, one of my grandmas always gives me pattern books and tell me abt when she knitted things for mom, my other grandma is giving me a wedding quilt that HER grandma gave her 50 years ago because she knows i will appreciate it). it also got me likeminded friends who also make things.
take a ceramics class! pick up water colors, bake cakes! learn to work on cars! make soap. DO SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE STARING AT A SCREEN.
Hobbies cost money, Helen.
Do you eat? Then you can have a hobby.
Can you see green outside? Can you get some dirt? Then you can have a hobby.
Do you have a pen and paper? Hobby.
Something with a keyboard? Hobby.
The ability to walk? Hobby.
Get creative and don't be a pessimist is step one Barabra.
Acting like it’s easy or simple to have an ENJOYABLE hobby on zero budget is a puerile view that shifts the blame for the unhappiness of people trapped at the bottom of a dehumanizing, vicious system. Its possible of course. There are people who are into things that can be done cheaply, and that’s great! But not everyone takes joy in the things that can be done on a budget of next to nothing, and we shouldn’t EXPECT people to!
Might as well lie down and die then! God forbid anyone try to better themselves.
Have two feet and a heartbeat? Go for a fucking walk, do some pushups, volunteer to play with shelter dogs.
Have two hands and a heartbeat? Sketch. Napkins are free, steal a pen from your job, voila! Picasso.
Have one hand and a pacemaker? Might I recommend composing music on garage band?
The Y offers low-cost social classes. There are also coding classes online. Turn a hobby into a job!
Your computer has a microphone. Start making podcasts.
Crafty and bedbound? Try watercolours; they’re available at the dollar store.
Granola hippy? Get a towel, find a floor, queue up a yoga tutorial on YouTube. Namaste.
Garden witch? Dollarstore pot and a small bag of potting mix. Take your old head of lettuce, keep the bottom wet for a day, put butt of lettuce into dirt. Voila. Salad. Mint works well and is likewise indestructible.
Not into sports? Read books online. There are thousands of classic titles available. Internet got cut off? Library. Illiterate? Perfect — there’s your project. Or: books on tape, available at your local library, for free.
Look — I don’t take joy in my commute and I wish I had a helicopter to take me everywhere I wanted to go. But whining about my misfortune doesn’t solve my problem, and neither does this defeatist attitude.
If you have the time and tech to scroll this website, you have the time to develop a fulfilling hobby.
Anything else is just wallowing in your own misery because the alternative — trying and failing — is too daunting.
Oh well. Life is daunting. So either get it done or get it over with; it does not get any easier.
Lmao y’all are really over here assmad at the very idea of bettering your lives in any way. It’s kind of pathetic.
“Have you guys considered doing something worthwhile that makes you happy? :) ”
Tumblr: no, and I will not, and you’re ableist and classist for suggesting such a thing fuck off
Knot-tying & macramé - you can often find yarn at thrift shops or dollar stores (not always but with some frequency).
YouTube tutorials, websites, and learn to mend your clothes. Some outlay for thread, needles, scissors, and maybe patches and buttons. But spending less money buying new clothes..
Dollar stores often have coloring books & pencils, too. Go wild. Color the sun blue, grass purple, & trees red. Go outside the lines. Add stuff to the picture.
Sharpie pen & rounded rocks - draw pictures and happy messages and give them to people or leave them to be found.
Cotton string, paint, & paper. Dip string in paint & drape it on paper. Repeat with other colors. It doesn’t matter if your hand shakes, in fact it’s better.
Some craft places & senior centers & community centers have classes for free or for the cost of the materials. Try the craft with just enough materials for 1 project, instead of investing lots of money.
Look up crafts aimed at kids. Those are often simple with inexpensive materials. Get your foot in the creativity door.
I will teach other depressed fuckers to knit because nothing defeats nihilistic fatalism like wearing the sweater you made from scratch!
Seriously.
I sympathize with it feeling impossible to get started and with some versions of a hobby being out of reach, but that’s not every version.
If you like plants other than the aforementioned mint, you can often take cuttings from ones beside the road somewhere and get them to grow roots in a glass of water before transplanting them to dirt.
If you like fiber crafts, you can often find odd assortments of yarn for cheap. If you have a local Buy Nothing or other neighborhood giveaway thing, crafters are often decluttering their stashes and giving away nice quality stuff, just in small amounts that you couldn’t make a whole project out of. Maybe you can’t get every size and variety of tool, but a lot of people would be happy to pass on a single pair of needles. I’ve been shocked at how much interesting stuff people just put on the sidewalk because they’re overwhelmed by stuff.